Originally scheduled to end at midnight tonight (30 April), the promo – announced here – will now run until midnight on May 5. So that gives you an additional few days to save a tidy sum on one of the most versatile guitars that PRS have ever produced…

Buy a PRS Studio model from a participating UK dealer before May 5 and you’ll receive an immediate £250 discount at the checkout, whether you’re buying in store or on-line. There are no forms to fill in and nothing to send off to claim back your discount, so it’s easy as can be!

Guitarist magazine called it ‘the new ruler in the compact-head kingdom’, while Premier Guitar reckoned the TM18 is ‘one of the best small-wattage amps out there in terms of quality, flexibility and diversity of tone’. Despite its easily manageable size, the amp doesn’t skimp on features, as you’ll see below…

As you might imagine, the Best Electric Guitar and Best Guitar Amp Head are hotly contested categories, but the world’s journos ultimately decided that the PRS SC58 and Tubemeister 18 head were worthy of their respective titles. You can see Rudiger Forse from H&K receiving the award for the awesome TM18 here.

These are huge honours, and we’re very proud to be involved with the winning teams in the UK! So congratulations to our friends in the US and Europe who work so hard to develop products like the SC58 and TM range – and cheers!

The rebate applies whether you buy in store or on-line, so now is the perfect time to treat yourself to one of the most versatile guitars in the PRS line-up.

The 22-fret, 25″ scale length Studio is built around the classic mahogany back and neck/carved, figured maple top blueprint, with the killer combination of a pair of PRS Narrowfield pickups and a 57/08 humbucker. The pickups deliver everything from creamy single-coil tone to fat rock lead sounds, making the Studio a really classy all-rounder. You can find full details of the Studio on the PRS website here

With a choice of Pattern or Pattern Thin neck, V12 finish, Birds inlays the Studio feels, looks and plays as good as you’d expect – so maybe it’s time for a little Easter gift to yourself?

The funky new Semi-Hollows also get a different scratchplate layout compared to the standard model, but everything else stays true to the winning formula of the original. So that’s mahogany back, maple top, 22-fret Wide Fat mahogany neck and SE treble and bass humbuckers. It always was a great guitar – now you can add an extra dash of quirkiness and limited status to its list of attributes!

Recommended retail price is £825, which includes an excellent padded PRS SE gigbag – and remember, there’s only 15 of each on offer, so they’ll go quick!

Launched at the NAMM show in January, the Tubemeister 5 range comprises a 1×8″ combo, head and 1×10″ cab. The valve amp features a 12AX7 preamp tube and  oversized transformers for excellent headroom.

It might be down-sized, but there’s nothing small-scale about the TM5′s tone – glittering cleans and full-throated overdrive sounds are all on tap, with three-band EQ that’s separately tweaked to suit.

But perhaps the most exciting feature of the Tubemeister is its Red Box recording output. Hughes & Kettner’s legendary Red Box circuitry means silent, speaker emulated DI recording, making the Tubemeister 5 one of the most flexible, useful and addictive guitars amps around.

The TM5s are in UK dealers now, so make a beeline for your local Hughes & Kettner store and see what all the excitement’s about!

Recommended retail prices for the Tubemeisters are:

Tubemeister 5 head – £349

Tubemeister 5 combo – £379.95

1×10″ cabinet – £199.95

The stunning quilted tops and finishes appear in addition to the standard SE 245′s stellar spec; 22-frets, 24.5″ scale length, mahogany back and Wide Fat neck with rosewood fingerboard and birds inlays. And simple but powerful electrics – a pair of cracking PRS Designed SE 245 humbuckers mated to volume and tone controls (a pair for each pickups) and a three way toggle switch.

Recommended retail price for the new SE 245 Quilt Limited is £699 and the model is available in UK PRS dealers now – but it won’t be for long, so grab one while they last!

Colours in the image above (from left) are Whale Blue, Black Cherry, Grey Black, Vintage Natural, Purple Burst and Dark Cherry Sunburst

“The first time I saw any PRS Guitars was when I was 13,” Will remembers, “I’d just started playing guitar, and I saw Charlie Simpson was using one in the video for his “old band’s” video for ‘Sleeping With The Light On’. I saw it, and I knew I wanted one just like it – it looked amazing!

“A few years later, I was a huge SikTh fan and when I first saw them live, I noticed Dan Weller was using a PRS as well. From then on I saved any little bit of money I could, be it pocket money, cash from doing little odd jobs around the neighbourhood, and later on money from a full time job – it all went in the ‘PRS Fund’!

“In the years I saved up, I didn’t let my PRS passion die; I’d go to guitar shops and test out their PRS’s every weekend – to the point that some stopped letting me try them after a while! I’d constantly be on the PRS website, checking out all their models and seeing how they updated any of their designs or what new models they brought in. “Eventually we got Rise To Remain together and when we went into the studio to record our debut album “City Of Vultures” in 2010, both our producers Colin Richardson (Machine Head, Trivium, Bullet For My Valentine etc) and Carl Bown had worked with Fightstar before – Carl was even childhood friends with Fightstar’s bassist Dan – and I got the insane opportunity to track rhythm guitars with two of Charlie’s Custom 24s! It just confirmed that PRS guitars were the guitars I had to use.

After the record was done, I borrowed a friend’s 25th Anniversary Custom 24 to film the video for our single “Nothing Left”, and not long after I found a secondhand C24 in a guitar shop. I played it, loved it, and so took out some of my PRS savings and bought it. A few months after, PRS got in contact, heard my story, and let me borrow a McCarty to use in the video for the next single, “Power Through Fear”. I ended up loving that guitar as well, and so persuaded them to let me buy that off them with what money I had left in my savings!
“These guitars have been my workhorses, and have taken any abuse that’s been thrown their way (not that I treat them badly!), and I know that I will be using PRS for many, many years to come.”

Among the highlights on the Headline stand will be the new PRS P22 model, the first PRS solid body to feature a piezo pickup for incredible acoustic tones. Launched at NAMM, the P22 has been causing a huge buzz, so be sure to drop in to the stand and see just how impressively versatile the guitar is!

Also from PRS, we’ll have some really tasty SE245 models in limited edition colours – Whale Blue, Black Cherry, Grey Black, Vintage Natural, Purple Burst and Dark Cherry Sunburst (that’s them at the top of this post). With a UK retail price of £699 these aren’t likely to hang around long…

Amp-wise, it will be the awesomely brilliant Hughes & Kettner TubeMeisters that take centre stage – the cute-but-powerful 5w and 18w designs have gone down a storm thanks to their valve tone and Red Box recording outputs among other features. We’ll have a range of other Hughes & Kettner models on display too for those needing something a little larger on stage etc!

You’ll also have the chance to check out the stunning Visual Sound Dual Tap Delay at GBGS. It’s sooo good that every pedal board should have one – beautifully designed and made, it’s an inspiring musical tool that we absolutely love to bits!

If the gear weren’t enough, we’re also very pleased to confirm that both Bernie Marsden and Simon McBride will be performing at GBGS. Bernie will be playing his new PRS SE signature model, of course, and Simon’s hot-rodded blues rock playing has never sounded better than it does right now, so we’re very much looking forward to seeing both of them tear the roof off!

For more info on the Great British Guitar Show visit www.ukguitarshows.co.uk – and we look forward to seeing you at the weekend!

This year, PRS has a raft of new and updated guitars on display, from affordable acoustics to swish, super-flexible electric models. So there’s truly something for everyone.

One of the most significant new PRS arrivals for 2012 is that of the P22. PRS’s first piezo-equipped solid-body guitar, it’s a brilliantly flexible instrument. Piezo specialist LR Baggs has long been involved in the design of PRS piezo systems for its hollowbody guitars, and the company has had a hand in creating the pickup system for the P22. The piezo aspect of the guitar is teamed with a pair of fabulous uncovered 53/10 humbuckers to give the perfect blend of acoustic and ‘traditional magnetic’ tone – and the guitar looks stunning of course, with a figured maple top, mahogany back and neck and 22-fret rosewood fingerboard. Separate or combined piezo/magnetic outputs and on-board mixing means tons of flexibility for live and studio use.

There’s been a lot of behind-the-scenes work going on on the SE range in the last few months. And the highlights of the hard graft are; a brand new Dave Navarro signature SE (at last!), gorgeous bevelled tops across various models, a new look Nick Catanese (Black Label Society) model, a new top for Orianthi’s signature SE and enhanced switching on the SE Custom 24. If that weren’t enough, the SE line also adds a pickup option to the SE Angelus acoustic…

Dave Navarro is now only the third PRS artist with both US-made and SE signature models (he follows in the footsteps of Carlos Santana and Mark Tremonti). His new SE has a bevelled maple top, mahogany back, maple neck, rosewood fingerboard and SE HFS and Vintage Bass humbuckers (with three-way toggle  and push-pull tone control). It’s finished in Jet White – of course – with gold hardware.

The other most noticeable SE launching at NAMM is the new Nick Catanese model. It’s much more traditional looking than the first incarnation (with its blood red binding and Evil Twin graphic), and to our eyes it’s a good thing. Nick’s guitar was always a cracker, but the less, er, individual vibe of version two will increase its appeal. A flame maple veneer, bevelled top, ebony fingerboard without inlays, EMG81/85 humbuckers and TonePros bridge mean it’s still completely rockin’.

Orianthi’s sig SE also gets a tweak or two. It now comes with a three-way blade (as opposed to toggle) switch and push-pull tone control – the finish changes from Red Sparkle to Scarlet Red, which we like a lot.

Away from the artist SEs, the SE Custom gets the new bevelled top, and although it might seem a minor change, it really does make the ‘affordable’ PRS look a million dollars. It’s even closer to the vibe of the US guitars now – very sexy indeed. The SE Custom also now gets a coil tap via a push-pull tone control and a three-way blade selector.

The SE Angelus acoustic gets the option of a PRS pickup system for 2012. The under-saddle design is controlled by a three-band EQ and an anti-feedback loop – we should see the acoustics in the UK this spring. The rest of the Angelus’ specs stay the same, with solid back and solid spruce top and the same proprietary bracing pattern as PRS’s US-made acoustics.